In the Age of Corman's Heroes

For a short span of years in the early 1980s barbarian movies were huge business. This all started because of Conan the Barbarian, the 1982 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in the title role. So many studios desperately wanted to get a piece of that sweet Conan money, and they all threw their hats in the ring to make it happen. Few succeeded. In fact, not even Conan himself could make magic strike twice (or thrice if you count the 2011 Conan the Barbarian) with the 1984 sequel Conan the Destroyer finding far less warmth and acclaim at the Box Office, coming in as a certified flop.

Making a barbarian movie was easy. Making a good one was much harder as there was a specific mix of elements, adventure, and magic that was needed. Of course, if you didn’t care if the movie was good or not you could easily crank out several dozen barbarian films while the genre was hot. That’s what Roger Corman did, creating a whole fleet of these films, filming them in Argentina on tiny budgets so they could be shoved out the door to recoup whatever profits were possible. And that all started, for the famously cheap and low-budget Corman with Deathstalker.

Now we have covered one Deathstalker film before, all thanks to Mystery Science Theater 3000First aired on the independent TV network KTMA, Mystery Science Theater 3000 grew in popularity when it moved to Comedy Central. Spoofing bad movies, the gang on the show watch the flicks and make jokes about them, entertaining its audience with the same kind of shtick many movies watchers provided on their own (just usually not as funny as the MST3K guys could provide). It became an indelible part of the entertainment landscape from there, and lives on today on Netflix., which aired the third film, Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell, as part of their seventh season. That was the only one of the four Deathstalker films to get MST3K coverage (although they did talk over other Corman barbarian films, such as both Wizards of the Lost Kingdom and sequel Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II). And you can see why they didn’t cover this film simply by watching it since Deathstalker follows the key rules of barbarian films: swords, gore, and gratuitous nudity. That last bit, which is so prevalent in the film that one of the co-stars wears a costume that’s little more than two straps around (not over) her breasts, it would have made the film impossible to edit for television. It’s unfortunate, too, because this is probably one of the better Corman films in the genre, even without all the nudity.

Deathstalker stars Rick Hill as the title character, a swaggering, charismatic ruffian who lives the outlaw life on his terms. After stopping some brigands from stealing a bunch of treasure and kidnapping a girl to use as their slave, Deathstalker meets with a deposed king. That king’s daughter, Codille (Barbi Benton), was stolen by the evil sorcerer, Munkar (Bernard Erhard), who is holding her as part of his harem. The king wants Deathstalker to go and save his daughter because, “that’s what heroes do.” Deathstalker, though, has no interest in sticking out his neck to be a hero, instead preferring his life as an outlaw.

Later, though, he meets with a wise woman who tells him that Munkar has two of three mystical treasures, a chalice and a pendant, and that if Munkar gets the third item, a magical sword, he’ll be able to rule the world. This gets through to Deathstalker, if only because that would get in the way of his free-roaming lifestyle. So Deathstalker heads out to find the sword… which he amusingly does almost instantly. He then hears of a great tournament that Munkar is throwing, gathering all the best warriors in the last. Drawing together some friends, Deathstalker agrees to go to the tournament and enter, seeing it as their best shot at taking down the evil sorcerer once and for all.

The thing about Corman’s films is that they were all generally quite bad, but that was by Hollywood standards. A good Corman film would still be viewed as bad through any other lens, but when compared to other works from the producer, Deathstalker really isn’t bad. Sure it shows all the same issues that so many of Corman’s films tended to have: shoddy editing, simplistic writing, cheap sets, bad costumes, bad effects. The list goes on and on, but these were all hallmarks of his films. He could do it well or he could do it fast and he invariably chose fast (because fast was also cheap). The more films he cranked out, the more profit he could get when one of those quick and dirty films succeeded.

And, credit where it’s due, Deathstalker was a financial success. Where Conan the Destroyer was considered something of a flop because it only made back $31 Mil against its $18 Mil budget (only becoming truly profitable once home video sales were taken into account), Deathstalker was a success when it made a relatively tiny $5 Mil. That’s because the film was made on a budget of only $457k, making its $5 Mil hall a huge return on investment. That’s how Corman worked, and a success like Deathstalker easily proved his strategy.

The film works as well as it does largely thanks to its cast. There are three key members that make the film watchable, and the first is Rick Hill. He originates the Deathstalker role, although he also doesn’t return for the first two sequels. Here, in this film, his outlaw hero is brave and strong, but also charismatic. The actor actually started out as a football player, even trying to go pro, before an injury in Canadian Football League (read: the minors, in effect) sidelined him permanently. Acting feels like a natural fit for him, with the actor providing not just a role that draws the eye, but also comedic timing that helps to keep his scenes light. It’s just the right “above it all” attitude that actually suits a Roger Corman film.

Joining him in the cast was Richard Brooker as Oghris, another outlaw who is handy with a sword. Brooker, like Hill, had solid chemistry in the film and kept his performance light and funny. The real draw, though, was his sword fighting. It’s pretty clear that Brooker trained to use swords, especially fencing, as he seems natural in his scenes. Where Hill is a presence with his acting, Brooker could sell the action sequences in a way no one else in the cast could. The action in the film was generally bad, except when Brooker was around and then it almost, very nearly got acceptable… maybe even good.

Finally there was Lana Clarkson as Kaira and, yes, she’s the heroine who wanders around essentially topless for most of the film (a factoid even Wikipedia had to point out). This was the film that helped launch her career, with the actress eventually starring in multiple other Corman works, such as Barbarian Queen, Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II (in part because that film reuses a ton of footage from Barbarian Queen), and the Barbarian Queen sequel. I think her performance here is fine. Naturally all anyone talks about is how she’s naked most of the time, but her acting is actually pretty good for what she’s given. And she’s no worse with a sword than Hill.

With all that said, what holds this film back from being good by any standard, and not just good by Corman’s own metrics, was that the story is completely forgettable. Our hero is given a quest: get the last magical item before the villain, and stop him from taking over the world. This is something you would expect would take up the whole movie, with the quest for the sword being an impressive, multi-part adventure. But no, that part of the film is resolved in five minutes. “Oh, here’s the cave with the sword. I got this, bro.” And he did. But because that part of the film resolves itself so quickly, the rest of the movie dawdles, spending its time on a lot of filler, marking scenes with characters watching action, getting busy, and waiting for the tournament. Said tournament doesn’t even occur until the middle of the third act and is basically fully resolved in a single montage. That leaves a whole bunch of time where nothing of consequence really happens.

The fact is that a good hour of this film could be cut out and you wouldn’t miss anything of consequence. That’s how little story happens, how few of the scenes are actually needed for the story to make sure. If you trimmed it down to the hero getting the sword, finding out about the tournament, winning the tournament, and then fighting Munkar, you might have twenty minutes of actual footage, and even MST3K would struggle to get a full episode of material out of that. So little happens in this film that audiences today likely would start browsing their phones, waiting for the next key scene to come up. I know I was.

I liked elements of this film, and for a Corman production that’s impressive. Most of the time it’s easy to end up hating everything with nothing redeeming about the films presented, and this one at least is amusing in places and has a few bright moments of actually decent action. It’s not enough to redeem the film and make it good by normal standards, but at least within the span of Corman’s works, this actually does rise above the cruft. A B-plus Corman film is still an F by most standards… or maybe a gentlemanly D-minus.